200 protest deal to sell Rice radio station to UH

ANITA HASSAN, HOUSTON CHRONICLE |
August 22, 2010

Rachel McLaughlin, second from left, stands with other KTRU fans and supporters during a Save KTRU demonstration Sunday at Rice University. The station's fans are protesting the planned sale of the college radio station.

"I felt pretty debilitated and helpless being so far away,“ said Orosco, 22, who moved to Berkeley, Calif., after graduating last spring. "I wanted to make sure I was apart of the voice that helped fight for KTRU."

Orosco — a former KTRU station manager — was among roughly 200 students, faculty and community members who gathered on the Rice campus Sunday afternoon to protest the $9.5 million sale of the station's broadcast tower, FM frequency and license.

'Free-form, eclectic'

In front of a statue of the university's founder William Marsh Rice - protesters placed a yellow KTRU sticker strategically across its mouth - and under the sun's blazing heat, the crowd cheered and spoke about the importance of maintaining the station.

"KTRU is an important local, regional and national resource for independent media,“ said Matthew Wettergreen, a graduate alumni who currently teaches at the university. "It's been a platform for musical and cultural education for the last 40 years."

The station offers a mix of music, along with broadcasts of some Rice athletics. On its website, the station is described as "a free-form, eclectic radio station that thinks it's a bad thing to play the same song twice in a span of an hour."

Last Tuesday, UH's governing board voted 5-3 to proceed with the purchase. Officials with UH's current station, KUHF, plan to switch that station to an all-news format. KTRU would become KUHC (91.7 FM), and would offer classical music and arts coverage. .

Plans for the money

Rice officials said they plan to use the proceeds from the sale to improve campus life, including helping offset the cost of a new food service facility.

"KTRU is unique to the university and reaches to people outside the hedges of the campus,“ current station manager Kelsey Yule said. "The experiences students have at KTRU and other student organizations is more attractive to prospective students than a new facility."

Community member Olivia Dvorak, cofounder of Super Happy Fun Land, a multi-purpose performance and arts space, said that KTRU is one of the only outlets the plays the kind of music that their venue showcases.